In order to streamline office clerical work, or due to space cost for file cabinets or environmental considerations etc., there has long been a need to computerize slip processing to build a paperless document processing system. Thus, computerized workflow systems have been developed. A “workflow” refers to a series of flows of predetermined tasks stereotyped according to the contents of work. Management of such a workflow has recently been achieved as a feature of groupware.
An example of workflow systems will be specifically described with reference to an example of application processing. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing a flow of application processing. FIG. 14 is a diagram showing a conventional screen on a processing person's computer in application processing shown in FIG. 13. In application processing shown in FIG. 13, “Reception Process”, “Process 1”, and “Process 2” are carried out after a submission of an application, and “Process 1” and “Process 2” are described here as separate activities. This means that once “Reception Process” has completed, “Process 1” and “Process 2” may be performed by different persons in parallel.
First, when an application is submitted as shown in FIG. 13, Processing Person A performs “Reception Process” such as verifying entries. Specifically, a list of work items as shown in FIG. 14 (a1) is displayed to Processing Person A, who selects an activity to process from that list. Then, a screen shown in FIG. 14 (a2) is displayed to the processing person A, who will proceed to “Reception Process”.
When “Reception Process” is completed by Processing Person A, next “Process 1” and “Process 2” are allowed to be processed. Since Processing Person B performs “Process 1”, a list of work items as shown in FIG. 14(b1) is displayed to Processing Person B. Processing Person B then selects an activity to process from that list as described above. A process screen as shown in FIG. 14 (b2) is displayed to Processing Person B, who will then proceed to “Process 1”. In the same manner, Processing Person C performs “Process 2”.
In such a workflow system in which a plurality of activities are processed in series, a “list of work items” is displayed to a processing person. Once a processing person has selected a predetermined activity and the activity has been completed, a next activity for the start of which is prerequisite completion of a predetermined activity becomes available for processing. Then the next activity that has become available for processing is added to a “list of work items” that will be displayed to a person able to process a next activity. Accordingly, the person available for processing selects a next activity and starts processing thereof.